Millions of women across the globe farm and look after land – yet are excluded from owning it, hurting their incomes, depriving them of wealth and undermining their other basic rights. Anandita Ghosh and Shivani Satija on a wide-ranging issue of the Oxfam-edited Gender and Development journal that not only examines structural obstacles to women owning land but also looks at broader themes, including the way deprivation of land rights adds to women’s care workload – and, crucially, how securing women’s land and water rights will be essential for global food security and climate resilience.
Women have historically been excluded from land ownership and remain excluded right up to the present day. Why is this? Our special issue of the Gender and Development Journal explores the cultural, colonial and systemic reasons behind this economic exclusion.
This special issue, “Transforming land rights, improving rural livelihoods, and carving just responses to the climate crisis”, also looks wider, beyond exclusion, to tackle many more questions. What, for instance, are the broader implications of denying women their land rights on their roles as carers? How will women’s land ownership help to tackle the climate crisis and food insecurity? How have corporations and neoliberal policies undermined women’s rights? How have Indigenous and traditional knowledge and patterns of land ownership been erased, and how are they resurgent? And what about wider efforts led by women to win rights over land and other resources?
Guest edited by Dina Najjar, Naomi Shadrack, and Sara Ahmed, this issue includes experiences and learnings from Benin, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Laos PDR, Malawi, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Thailand, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia. In this blog, we look at five key themes from the issue.
1. Cultural, legal, colonial, and systemic barriers
Women have been historically excluded from land and resource ownership and still are today. Even where women legally have equal inheritance rights, they may not be able to claim these because of patriarchal norms and expectations; religious and cultural norms; or conflicts and threats.
In Ethiopia, tensions between constitutional and customary law (meaning the unwritten norms that govern community behaviour) hinder implementation of women’s land tenure and inheritance rights (see Roberts and Brown in the issue). In Uganda, the misinterpretation of customary laws and imperfect practice of statutory laws obstruct women from claiming their full land rights under both sets of laws (Foote). In India, widowed women farmers are largely missing from agrarian policies and financial aid interventions (Gughane).
The resulting gendered gap in land ownership negatively affects women’s economic prospects and well-being, affecting their livelihoods and pushing them into precarious work. Authors also highlight the links between this exclusion and water rights. Gumucio at al. demonstrate how water rights are often tied to land ownership.
Beyond gender, access to and control of resources is shaped by class, race, caste, and ethnicity. Authors emphasise the importance of an intersectional approach in land and water governance. Gughane draws attention to the denial of inheritance rights to widows of farmers who die by suicide in Maharashtra, India. Across Indian states, Pallical and Dinker demonstrate how Dalit people’s rights to natural resources are restricted due to caste discrimination, despite land reforms. In Thailand, Kammerer et al. chart how fish farmers’ work and experiences are moulded by gender, class, age, ethnicity, and environmental conditions.
Several contributions highlight colonialism’s legacies of land dispossession. Writing on land rights in the African region, Chigbu uncovers how colonial land registrations served to erase women from landholding roles, making ownership male-centric and contributing to the continuing challenges in land access for women in the region today. Mane et al. discuss how practices and models of ‘development’ often follow colonial and capitalist logics, disregarding the voices of Indigenous peoples.
Contributors also raise the issue of neocolonialism. Amaya et al. look at climate adaptation practices in the Colombian Amazon and approaches that create conflict between and the rights and needs of Indigenous people, which may lead to new forms of enslavement and usurpation.
2. Neoliberalism
Several contributions in the issue demonstrate the ways in which neoliberal policies further marginalise those at the margins through erosion of community knowledges and dispossession. For instance, Mane et al. and Hernando-Arrese and Ibarra show the negative impact of private corporations and state development on community-held land, water, and forest resources in Cambodia and Laos ; and also highlight the impact of separation of water from land rights in Chile, respectively.
3. The invisibility of care work
Another focus of the issue is the way lack of access and control over land and water resources impact women’s paid and unpaid labour, especially in the context of climate crises. In Banaskantha, India, women’s care burden has significantly increased due to the effects of climate change – with droughts and floods occurring in the same season (Bachina et al). The impact is also personal and emotional: in Thailand, in addition to the physical demands of farm fishing, women in small-scale aquaculture must carry the emotional burden of uncertain yields and fluctuating water conditions (Kammerer et al).
Yet these care and work burdens remain mostly invisible in national adaptation frameworks. Additionally, gendered assumptions around care lead to the marginalisation of critical knowledge that women have regarding conservation, sustainable agriculture, restoration, and resource management, as several articles in this issue demonstrate (Mane et al., Amaya et al., Hernando-Arrese and Ibarra, and Bachina et al.).
4. Recognising Indigenous knowledge systems
Indigenous knowledge systems and practices built over generations offer a challenge to neoliberal approaches to land and water governance that prioritise the market and profit.
Authors argue that neglecting or undermining such Indigenous knowledge and practices, in favour of Eurocentric knowledge and practices could lead to a loss of vital and effective local perspectives. In Cambodia and Laos, Cambodian and Hmong Indigenous women have been critical in managing land and water resources over generations (Mane et al.). They are holders of traditional ecological knowledge and are powerful agents in responding to the effects of climate change.
Amaya et al. (in this issue) demonstrate the ways in which agricultural and traditional ritual practices are intertwined for local communities in the Colombian Amazon. Agricultural practices in the region benefit forest restoration and also contribute to food security. Several authors in this issue argue for the meaningful inclusion of Indigenous and local people in policy-making spaces and the inclusion and incorporation of local and Indigenous knowledge and experiences in policies.
5. Women’s resistance and collective action
Contributions in this issue highlight how women across the globe are taking the lead in claiming resource rights. For instance, Indigenous women in the Tolten hydrosocial territory, in Chile and the Tukano Oriental Indigenous Peoples in the Colombian Amazon are highlighting the importance of traditional practices and knowledges that are critical to conserving their ecosystems and to their own survival. (Amaya et al., and Hernando-Arrese and Ibarra).
In Uganda, local organisations are negotiating land rights at the intersection ofcustomary and statutory laws (Foote). In Thailand, inter-generational resistance to hydropower-induced displacement manifests as community-led activism (Kammerer et al.). In India, Barot, and Pallical and Dinker highlight community-led activism and leadership in water and land rights.
Such activism can take many forms, including through the arts: Najjar et al. discuss the power of community-led theatre in influencing gender norms related to land inheritance and entrepreneurship. Throughout this special issue, our authors highlight diverse initiatives and acts of resistance and resilience. These need to be recognised and are essential for designing climate adaptation strategies that empower key stakeholders.
Even when there are progressive policies, women’s land rights will remain precarious unless they wield real decision-making power. Monterroso advocates for meaningful and leadership roles for women within decision-making spaces such as land management committees, policy advisory boards, and community-based land redistribution programme.
6. How women’s land rights can build climate resilience
As mentioned earlier, women across contexts are leading in both climate adaptation and land and water rights movements. In fact, women’s collectives and movements have played a key role towards climate-resilient futures. Larson and Meinzen-Dick stress the need to use gender transformative approaches to support women’s rights to land and resource rights, an approach that addresses and challenges underlying, systemic social norms. Najjar et al. argue that securing women’s land tenure is good for climate resilience as it allows women to invest in climate-smart agriculture and encourages water conservation.
In Chile, community resistance has helped policy to centre water use for subsistence, sanitation, consumption, and protection of ecosystems (Hernando- Arrese and Ibarra). In Gujarat, India, women have resisted and protested against water policies that disadvantage local communities (Barot). Further, Monterroso discusses the role of funding mechanisms in enabling equitable climate and biodiversity outcomes. Such articles highlight the importance of strengthening women’s land and water rights for climate resilience and for transforming livelihoods.
Conclusion
Ultimately, this special issue underscores that securing women’s land and water rights is not just about legal ownership – it is a fundamental prerequisite for food security, climate resilience, and sustainable rural livelihoods. Without addressing the historical injustices and systemic exclusions that have marginalised women in land and resource governance, global climate strategies will remain incomplete. Future research, policy, and advocacy efforts must continue to centre women’s agency, recognising that equitable land and water rights are integral to just and sustainable responses to the climate crisis.
Author
Author
This blog is based on the introduction to the special issue authored by Dina Najjar, Naomi Shadrack, and Sara Ahmed.
Access all the articles from the Gender and Development Journal issue “Transforming land rights, improving rural livelihoods, and carving just responses to the climate crisis” free here at our Policy and Practice knowledge hub.